Never even saw it coming

[madmother2010]

My daughter recently gave birth to twin girls, two month premature, so they have been in the hospital since they were bore. My mother in law was helping her out with rides too and from the hospital in which they were beeing cared for, since my daughter lived in a smaller town and there was no neonatal intensive care unit there. Last week my mother in law and my daughter got into a verbal argument over taking care of the children. after my mother in law dropped my daughter off at her house, she proceeded to go back to where she lived and call the social services department in her county, and file a chips petition against my daughter. The day before my daughter was to go and pick her children up from the hospital the social worker showed up to do a home inspection, and the next day had my daughter served with papers preventing her from removing her children from the hospital. In the mean time my mother in law took it upon herself to start filling out everything that she needed to become an emergency foster placement. Which was not hard to do since her daughter works for social services.

They went to court my daughter, not knowing any of this and being totaly unprepared thought it was just a hearing, which is what the paperwork that she was served with said. Needless to say they took custody of her children and placed them with my mother in law. We were not notified of any of this until after the fact. So now what do we have to do to get any justice in this matter. By the way my mother in law is 69 and single, why would anyone in their right mind give two premature babies with breathing problems to a 69 year old woman to start with.

[LanceBabe]

What do you do now? Get a lawyer, a GOOD lawyer who isn't afraid of fighting CPS, not a court-appointed lawyer.

[LindaJM]

If your daughter signs any kind of papers in court admitting to any type of guilt, there will NEVER be a fair trial. The trial is the only place where the caseworker has to PROVE her case.

I agree.. she needs a lawyer - and not one that just tells her to "cooperate" with social services. She needs one that will fight for her right to be a parent to her children.

And when she gets her kids back she should move away from the mother-in-law and never let her see the kids again... she obviously cannot be trusted to be anything other than self-serving. She is not humane and does not care about how much she makes other people suffer.

[dabrock61attnet]

If you hire an Attorney make sure they are good and want to fight for you. In my experience when Social Services removes a child from a home the entire court system is on their side and you would not believe what the courts will do / fab against you. Be sure the Attorney is up on family law. I made a big mistake on hiring an Attorney highly recommended to me by a friend. We met with the Attorney and she said she's been in court with OCS before , etc. We felt she was the one to hire. We did not do our homework and had no idea of how OCS can fab false accusations against us. MY grandson was removed about a year ago and it has been hard. We love him so much. P L E A S E do you homework. I wish we had. It's hard to do things after the fact. Good Luck!

[Cheryl]

Tell her to sign absolutely nothing! Any signature will eliminate her right to "trial" where CPS HAS TO PROVE the case. Hearings are not the same as trials. Hearings are informal and CPS can say anything fabricated they want to without worry of rebuttal from the parents or witnesses the parents may have. You want to FORCE a trial and the only way to get that, is to NOT SIGN ANYTHING AND NOT AGREE TO ANYTHING. Agreement to services, constitutes guilt in the courts eyes, and they will schedule hearing after hearing, but NEVER a trial. The parent gets zero say so at hearings.

Get a really good attorney. Also, once she forces CPS' hand, get s the kids home, tell her to move far far away!!!!! Do not allow any contact with this in-law. It happened to me when my son was only 1 1/2 yrs old. I had him home (via trial) in 2 weeks. I moved away and never looked back. The in-law grandparents loss. They tried to find us and force visitation, but the judge maintained law which says: A grandparents rights are only extended thru the parents rights. If the parent is not excersicing their visitation, then the grandparents have no visitation. Likewise, if the biological parent is no longer the legal parent, then the biological grandparents are no longer legal grandparents and have no visitation either. This only applies in 2 cases. 1: the biologics are divorced. 2: CPS has taken custody of the child permenantly or TPR has occured.

My son is now 26 and has no desire to ever meet his bio dads parents. He feels they messed around too much with his young life already, using him as a bargining chip. He won't even discuss it. In fact, he will not really have anything to do with his bio dad as he didn't show up in his life again until her was 19!!! Caring guy, huh?